Posts Tagged ‘AAA Indie’

In the early days of alphafunding, long before we settled on the term “early access”, Zero Point Software came up with the loathsome “AAA Indie”. In 2009 they started crowdfunding Interstellar Marines, a type of game impossible in AAA Dependent: an FPS about space marines. Oh, but I’m too cruel. After years of prototypes and milestones ranging from a shooting gallery to competitive multiplayer, Zero Point updated it on Friday with the first iteration of what they’ve teased since 2006: single-player and co-op story missions.

Hmm. Interstellar Marines is an indie-developed high-sheen FPS which is… well, I’m intrigued for a load of reasons. Partially because it looks novel (Talking about trying to do a realistic first-contact alien event) and partially because of its route to market. The short version – for more read the press coverage – is that in 2006 they used a high-end game engine to do a demo, which got attention, they turn away from major publishers in favour of indie-dev… which makes the engine too expensive, so they’re moving over to another one. Which they can’t show in game footage publicly. Yet. It’s also got an interesting development philosophy - interesting in that it manages to be both self-deprecating (in its insistence on the import of the community and attention) and self-aggrandizing (not least in calling it “AAA Indie”. As in, if they’re AAA indie, what are everyone else?). Do read. Those videos they can show are below…Read the rest of this entry »